D is for Drillers

Rustic Cabin

This is a little stone cabin, and an exercise in symmetry. I tried to make this house a little more realistic than the last one I built.

How it started: I like those two stone wall pieces on either side of the door. I also like the door piece. Of course, either a castle or cabin had to be built around them.

What I like about it: I think this really looks like a house. I like the proportions and the colors of it. I’m fond of the windows. There are interior details that I added that aren’t visible – like the fireplace that can be used as a stove, the kitchen area (behind the window forward of the fireplace), the supporting column in the lower level, and the sleeping loft in the upper level.

What I’m not so fond of: I wanted the twin ponds at the entrance to look more like ponds. I wanted to add little towers above the sleeping loft, to make more of a “castle” look, but just couldn’t pull it off. Other than that, I like this thing a lot.

Personal Helicopter

Here is a one-person, open-cockpit, helicopter.

How it started: This thing actually started out as a racecar. I couldn’t get the front steering gears to work right. (I used to build Technic sets, following the instructions that are now in storage, and I thought I remembered the steering setup, but I guess I didn’t.) I started un-building, and when I started re-building again, somehow a helicopter emerged. I removed the racecar wheels, made the back the front, added a rotor, and I had a helicopter.

What I like about it: The tilted engine housings were a happy accident. At first, they were aligned horizontally, but I knocked one out of alignment and I liked the tilt. I feel it adds something to the look – a little something unexpected. I like the overall shape of this helicopter.

What I’m not so thrilled about: I like the tail rotor setup, but I wish I had built a little more mechanism to it.

C is for Captured

A Tropical Abode

This is a house for the tropics. It is designed to take advantage of cross breezes, but it can also be closed off during monsoons. It is built to survive the frequent flooding of the area. It is designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible, with a small footprint, a wind-powered electrical generator on top, and two geothermal power circulators below. It is constructed out of recycled materials.

How it started: It all started with that ladder. I thought that ladder was cool, and decided that it should lead to the front door of a house. The rest of the house just evolved around the ladder. Phillip provided a lot of valuable input toward the end of the construction. He suggested the pivoting umbrella on the top deck, the red navigational light on the wind-powered generator, the railings on the front walkway, and the binoculars in the occupant’s hand.

(By the way, there is a ladder inside that room to the left of the front door. The ladder leads to the top room, and also to a roof hatch that leads to the upper deck.)

  

 What I like about it: This house is fun to look at, and it was fun to put together. I love the arched railings on the two lower decks.

What I don’t like so much: The rooms in this house are maybe a bit too narrow. I’d hate to move furniture into it. I knew I wouldn’t have enough blocks to make the whole house a uniform color, but I wish I had kept the colors as logical on the upper levels as I started to on the lower levels.